This blog started on 11 March 2011, the day of the Tohoku Earthquake,with a brief e-mail entitled ‘I’m OK’ dispatched to close friends and family. The e-mail became a ’round robin’ and after a week it started a new life as a blog.

I’m an English woman living in Koriyama, Fukushima prefecture, a place no one had ever heard of, but which was suddenly being mentioned in the same breath as Chernobyl. Initially, this blog was a record of those first weeks, a record of how ordinary people, me and the 100 staff who work in the corrugated box factory I inherited, coped in the aftermath of the earthquake.

Sunday, 30 September 2012

Autumn Festival

Hi

Koriyama has a summer festival but it’s a relatively recent introduction. The autumn festival, Aki Matsuri 秋祭り is the one that’s in people’s blood. The festivities went on for four days. Last year the children didn’t get to participate as radiation was still high. But they made up for it this year. The festivities culminated last night when 33 mikoshishrines from different neighbourhoods were carried up and down the main street and finally made it to the main shrine, Hachiman-sama. They were lucky with the weather. Tonight, Sunday, as I write, a typhoon has hit the Nagoya area and here the rain is lashing down.

The excitement of the Matsuri is the sound of the drums, the pipes and the shouting. Photos are a poor substitute. But here goes ..

The number of outages in 2012 has remained higher than 2011 since June, and also above the five-year average since May.

Fri Sep 28, 2012 12:29pm EDT

* Nuke outages averaging above last year since June

* Outages seen dropping below last year next month

* Four reactors down for long-term work

By Scott DiSavino

[…]

Sept 28 (Reuters) – U.S. nuclear power outages over the last few months have been averaging well above last year and the five-year average primarily due to the continued shutdown of four reactors for major, long-term maintenance, according to Reuters data.

It is with huge sadness that Stop Hinkley announces the untimely death of Crispin Aubrey.

The Stop Hinkley campaign is coming to terms with the news that spokesperson Crispin Aubrey suffered a fatal heart attack on Friday afternoon in the midst of the preparations for the planned protest against Hinkley C next weekend.

Crispin played a key role in the preparations and was due to speak at the rally next Saturday. Crispin’s wife Sue, also part of the Stop Hinkley campaign, has bravelyrequested that the ‘show must go on because it’s what Crispin would have wanted’.

The Aubreys were involved in the original protest against Hinkley C over twenty years ago. Crispin took a lead role in the public enquiry and coordinated the campaign which was heralded a success as the reactor was never built.

Crispin was a life-long campaigner and had been a journalist all his working life, starting at the Hampshire Chronicle and London’s Time Out magazine. He wrote widely on environmental issues and was committed to the promotion of renewable energy.

Crispin was well respected contributor to the Stop Hinkley campaign and to the fight against new nuclear in the UK.

Crispin Aubrey, the journalist, author and campaigner, who has died of a heart attack aged 66, came to national prominence when he was arrested under the Official Secrets Act in 1977. His subsequent trial and the campaign around it led to a re-examination of secrecy legislation and shone a light into some of the darker corners of the intelligence services. Continue reading →

Nobel prize-winning German author Gunter Grass, declared persona non-grata by Israel over a poem saying it threatened world peace, has published another work critical of the Jewish state.

Grass hails Israeli nuclear spy in new poem

In one of a collection of 87 new pieces, Grass hails whistle-blower Mordechai Vanunu, who served 18 years in jail for leaking Israeli nuclear secrets to a British newspaper, in a poem entitled “A Hero in Our Time”.

He describes former nuclear technician Vanunu as a “hero” and a “role model”, according to extracts published by the German news agency DPA.

Earlier this year, Grass, 84, angered Israel after publishing a piece entitled “What Must Be Said”, in which he voiced fears that a nuclear-armed Israel “could wipe out the Iranian people” with a “first strike.”

Israel has since barred him from visiting the country.

Vanunu himself said that he was pleased to be mentioned by a writer of Grass’s stature.

“I am very happy to be in the league of Gunter Grass,” he told AFP, speaking in English. He compared Israel’s ban on a Grass visit to its refusal to let Vanunu leave the country.

“Vanunu would be happy to get from the interior ministry of Israel the title ‘persona non grata’ and they can send me out of Israel,” he said, speaking of himself with his customary use of the third person.

She was detained on administrative charged for five days, and denied medicines she has to take for a thyroid condition.

Arrested with her was Andrei Ozharovsky, another Bellona contributor and a nuclear physicist, who was held in a Minsk jail on administrative charges for 10 days. Upon his release, he was told he could not renter Belarus for 10 years.

Belarusian anti-nuclear campaigners Tatyana Novikova, a Bellona contributor, and Nikolai Ulasevich were on Wednesday refused entry to neighboring Lithuania on the grounds that the Baltic country’s government had declared them “personae non grata” and potential threats to the national security of that and other European Union nations.Bellona, 28/09-2012

A dark, gruesome, but wholly true depiction of the threat of thermonuclear war, the consequences, and Obama’s deployment of a major portion of the U.S. thermonuclear capabilities in multiple theaters threatening both Russia and China.

From the Global Energy Policy Research website

My feelings as a disaster victim who had supported nuclear power — It is necessary to continue to think about the reality of the disaster and its true causes

What I came to see was a precarious nuclear policy that had continually put off dealing with the root issues, the excessive leniency of those involved who simply went through the motions, the remoteness of the existence of the power plant to both the central government agencies and the company headquarters, and local governments and residents who were eager to profit yet totally unprepared for a state of emergency.

Toshiro KitamuraFormer Senior Specialist of the Japan Atomic Industrial Forum, Former Board Member of Japan Atomic Power View PDF

A proponent of nuclear power who became a victim of the disaster.

For nearly half of a century, I had made it my job to promote nuclear power, but no sooner had I retired than I myself was forced to evacuate by the nuclear incident. It is quite the ironic story.

It was in 1967 that I joined Japan Atomic Power, a power company which specializes in nuclear power. Later, I alternated between working on site and at the headquarters, mainly focused on the fields of safety administration andtraining, and I also had experience with negotiations of local governments and residents, and public relations.

I had become a member of the Japan Atomic Industrial Forum a few years ago, and my professional life was truly focused entirely on the promotion of nuclear power. I built a house in Tomioka in the eastern part of Fukushima Prefecture called Hamadori 13 years ago, and there I intended to spend the rest of my days.

There are 104 U.S. commercial nuclear reactors operating at 64 sites in 31 states that are holding some of the largest concentrations of radioactivity on the planet in onsite spent fuel pools.

Occupy the NRC (Nuclear Regulatory Commission), 29 Sept 12, And we thought Fukushima was bad? Check out what is in our backyards. Spent fuel is dangerous stuff. If something bad happens at a plant, it is not just the fuel in the reactor has the potential to be released in the atmosphere. SCARY. NOT FEAR MONGERING. REALITY PEOPLE, REALITY

Reactor operating cycles in the US have been doubled from 12 to 24 months in order to generate more electricity. As a result, more spent fuel with higher radioactivity
and thermal heat is being offloaded into evermore- crowded pools during each refueling outage. Continue reading →

In article titled, ‘How to help Iran build a bomb,’ New York Times quotes scholars and military experts who argue that airstrike on Iran’s nuclear facilities could actually lead Tehran to ensure realization of bomb

On the backdrop of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu‘s “red lines” address at the United Nations General Assembly this week, leading American media outlets continue to engage in the Iranian nuclear issue.

In a New York Times article titled, “How to help Iran build a bomb,” writer William J. Broad says a surprising number of experts argue that an airstrike on Iran’s nuclear facilities could actually lead to Iran’s speeding up its efforts, ensuring the realization of a bomb and hastening its arrival.

Pravda

Russia tries to catch up with USA’s level of hypersonic weapons

25.09.2012

Last week, the U.S. tested X-51 WaveRider hypersonic missile, which, as reported by the media, was unsuccessful. However, the missile is capable of reaching the speed of nearly 7,000 kilometersper hour, which is six times the speed of sound. The appearance of such systems in the modern army may considerably change the existing missile parity.Russia officially returned to this topic in 2009, when the Defense Ministry ordered to resume research works to develop hypersonic arms systems. Now, according to Rogozin, the Russian defense industry must “cut corners” to reach the technological level the USA has already achieved.

A super holding will be established on the basis of the group of companies Tactical Missiles and Military-Industrial Corporation (NPO Mashinostroyenia). The new organization will operate in the field of hypersonic technologies and their development, Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin said. Russia thus tries to keep up with the West, where supersonic missiles will form the basis of strike and missile defense systems.

As the official said, this issue had been discussed for almost six months. “In the first stage, it goes about the creation of a big superholding on the base of Tactical Missiles and the Military-Industrial Corporation,” said Rogozin.

Tactical Missiles Corporation was created in 2002 on the basis of Zvezda-Strela federal state unitary enterprise. The corporation includes a number of companies that produce highly efficient missiles, guided bombs and air, land and sea-based arms systems.

“We found an acceptable solution, as to how the superholding will be created. “The project of the decision contains the basic idea – the hypersonic technology,” said the official.

Russia is inferior to America in the field of the development of hypersonic technologies. The Pentagon generously spends money on the program of the development of hypersonic aircraft. During the past ten years, the Pentagon has spent about $2 billion on the program.

There seems to be some internet intermittent blocking on this video (below). It is currently working. The Labour Unions site is not available.

“Which leads me to the second part. I try not to be too conspiracy-minded, and I really dislike those who see black hands behind every move, but I cannot help but wonder if the abolishment of the personal scheme is not in some way linked to the fact that the national scheme is losing its ass in the markets. Could it be possible that the Japanese Govenrment is using its power to govern to legalize a massive capital grab?”

Graham (JT poster)

And the obvious reason might be found here (please read the comments as well)

Labor ministry to scrap employee pension insurance system

After a scandal in which pension funds placed in the hands of AIJ Investment Advisors Co vanished, the ministry set up a task force to deal with the financial problems faced by Japan’s pension system. The task force proposed scrapping the employees’ pension insurance system. Financial analysts say many employees’ pension insurance system funds were AIJ customers.

At a press conference this week, senior vice welfare minister Yasuhiro Tsuji, who leads the task force, said the system is scheduled to be scrapped after a transitional period, Sankei Shimbun reported. Continue reading →

HISTORY WAS MADE. Marion Odell, 29 Sept 2012 On May 12, 2011 history was quietly made when courageous WHO Director-General Margaret Chan said “There is no safe low level of radiation.”

Until May 12, 2011, the World Health Organization (WHO) always followed the lead of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) on nuclear health effects issues as there is a 1959 agreement that WHO would accept the findings of that organization. This agreement is still in effect and hopefully will be rescinded soon.

However this most likely will need some considerable political pressure from the
public. It is imperative that we support this tremendously important pronouncement and spread the message far and wide. This is a breakthrough that will impress the public because of the prestige of the World Health Organization and the integrity of the
Director-General Dr. Margaret Chan.

The letter to Director-General Dr. Margaret Chan from the International Institute of Concern for Public appears below. It can also be seen at iicph.org/330. Continue reading →

The three activists were going to visit India for only a few days. They had hoped to avail of the tourist visa on arrival to visit the “temples of modern India”. They came in solidarity, good will and peace. Neither they nor their friends in India had imagined that being “anti-nuclear” would be seen as a threat by the Indian government.

“When we got off the plane and approached the immigration counter, one personnel came to us smiling… [and took] us to the immigration office. [There were more than five personnel there.] … one asked me [Yoko Unoda] whether I am a member of No Nukes Asia Forum Japan. ‘You signed the international petition on Kudankulam, didn’t you?’ … another person asked, ‘Mr Watarida … he is involved in the anti-nuclear movement in Kaminoseki, right?’
‘Are you going to Kudankulam? Who invited you all? … Who will pick you up at Tuticorin airport? [they had a copy of the itinerary of the domestic flight] Tell me their names. Tell me their telephone numbers. Continue reading →